Products are the types of rooms or other accommodation units that you sell your customers, e.g. "Double Room with Ensuite","Twin Room with Balcony", "2 Bedroom Family Suite ", "Deluxe 2 Night Winter Package", "3 Bedroom Cottage".
Each Product has associated Rooms. Rooms are the individual units of accommodation. Most often, these will actually be rooms, but may be, for example cottages, apartments, suites, beds (for a backpacker hostel), powered camp site etc. that make up your accommodation business. Each Room will be given a name, which should be the normal way you refer to each physical room, e.g. "Room 1", "Room 2", "Room 3".
Combined Rooms are formed when two or more rooms are joined together to create one saleable piece of inventory, e.g. "Room 1" + "Room 2" = "Family Room 1". SEE ALSO Combined Rooms.
An individual Room or Combined Room can be associated with more than one Product, e.g. "Room 1" may be sold as a "Double Room", or "Triple Room".
Click on the Manage tab then select Products and Rates from the left hand menu. Product Overview Screen allows you to:
View existing Products and create new Products
View a product-level Best Available Rate Overview
See at a glance which pricing rules have been defined for each Product (Special Offers, Early Bird Discounts, Late Availability) and click to view those rules.
The coloured grid allows you to see at a glance whether you’ve set up a Best Available Rate for this Product for each month. The Best Available Rate is your most important Rate Type as it is the one that is used for selling your Products online via your own website and most other Distributor websites. So if a Best Available Rate is not defined, your products will not be bookable online via these sites.
If a month shows in red it means no Best Available Rate has been set up for that month, and therefore this Product cannot be sold online for stays in that month.
If a month shows in orange, it means there are some days in that month that do not have a Best Available Rate defined.
If a month shows in green, it means that there is a Best Available Rate defined for each day in that month.
If a month shows in blue, it means there are no Best Available Rates defined in the Daily Rate Manager, however, you have defined one or more Special Offers for this Product that include that month.
The Highest Rate and Lowest Rate fields shows you the current year’s highest rate and lowest rate entered for the Product and the dates on which they occur.
This may be used to highlight any unexpected pricing. For instance, if you normally charge $90 per night but accidentally enter $9.00.
You may click on the grey ‘Highest Rate’ or ‘Lowest Rate’ box which will take you straight to the relevant Daily Rate Manager page. The rate may then be corrected in the Daily Rate Manager.
Note: The Room name does not appear on your Booking Pages. Only the Product name will be seen by the online customer. The Room name/code will display only in the Diary screen and in internal management reports.
Click on the Manage tab.
Click on Products and Rates>Product Overview in the left hand menu.
Click on the ".gif){kind=small}
Setup Standard Rooms" button.
Click on the "-(16x16).gif){kind=small}
Add Room" button.
The Status of the Inventory should remain as Active.
Enter the Name of the Room, e.g. Room 10.
Enter a Code for the Room, e.g. R10.
Select the Preferences*.
Click on the ".gif){kind=small}
Save" button.
*A Waitlist Room is a "virtual" room that does not relate to an actual resource, but is used to take bookings for customers wishing to be waitlisted when no actual room are available. Booking data is not recorded in relevant reports, and this room cannot be booked online.
* Enabling a Room to be Available for Online Bookings means it will be available for sale through online channels.
This is only required if you have one or more rooms that can be sold as a combined unit.
First set up your Standard Rooms as above.
In Manage, click on Products and Rates>Product Overview in the left hand menu.
Click on the "Setup
Combined Rooms" button.
Click on the "Add Combined Room"
button.
Enter the Name of the Combined Room, e.g. Interconnecting 1&2.
Enter a Code for the Combined Room, e.g. IR1/2.
Click on the "Save"
button.
The next step is to Add Rooms to Combined Rooms. This is the step to
define which Rooms make up the Combined Room, e.g. Room 1 + Room 2
= Interconnecting 1/2.
Click on the .gif){kind=small}
(View)
icon beside the listed Combined Rooms.
Click on the "Add New" button.
Put a tick on the box in the Check to be Added column that corresponds with the Rooms that make up the Combined Room.
Click on the "Add Room" button.
When you go "Back" to the Summary screen, you will see that
the Combined Room listed now has a .gif){kind=small}
icon, indicating that the combined Room setup is complete. You must now
ensure that this Combined Room is associated with the relevant Products.
Click on the Manage tab.
Click on Products and Rates>Product Overview in the left hand menu. If you have previously created any Products, a summary will be shown.
Select a 'Classification' for your accommodation Products from the drop-down list.
In the 'Check-in time' field, enter the normal check-in time for your accommodation bookings in 24 hour format with a colon between. Eg: 14:00. Enter the normal 'Check-out time' of your accommodation bookings in the same way.
Click Save.
Scroll down and at bottom right, click on the "Add New Product" button and the Product Configuration screen will open. The Product Configuration screen has several parts: Product Description, Occupancy, Settings, Associated Rooms, Booking Extras and Images.
Enter the Product Description
Enter a Name for the product, such as "Deluxe Double Room with Ensuite". This name will be displayed to customers booking online.
Enter a Code. It is recommended you use 01, 02. etc.(followed by an abbreviated alpha code if required). This determines the order your rooms will appear. For example if you wish the Deluxe Double Room with Ensuite product to display at the top of the list, the code '01DE' could be used.
Select the Type of Product: Normal, Special Offer or Package.
Enter a Description. This is information you want customers to know about the Product and what will motivate them to buy. This is the description that the customer will view when booking via online channels including your own website. Type in the description, or copy and paste from your website or other electronic source. You should ensure your description contains at least the following information:
Room Type: General description of room (or other type of accommodation unit) and what makes it special.
Configuration: Number of bedrooms, number of beds, type of beds, what beds in what rooms etc.
Room/unit Facilities: Facilities specific to this type of room/unit.
Inclusions: Any extras that are included in the price of the room, for example breakfast or dinner.
Enter the Product Settings
Select Yes or No for "Is tax exempt". Select Yes if you are not GST registered and/or do not want GST automatically calculated for the prices entered for this Product.
Select Yes or No for "Daily Service Required". If a daily clean or service is included in the price of this Product, select Yes; the Product booked will then appear on the Cleaning Report under "Daily Service".
Enter an amount into "Maximum Occupancy". This is the maximum number of people that this Product can accommodate, e.g. 2 in a Double Ensuite.
Occupancy
Enter the total number of guests for this Product. Note that this capacity relates specifically to this Product and the price being charged for it. For example, you may have Room 1 which actually fits 3 people. It is associated with both the Product called 'Deluxe Poolview Room' and the Product called 'Deluxe Room Dinner Package'. Even though Room 1 fits 3 people, the capacity for 'Deluxe Poolview Room' may be 3 and the capacity of 'Deluxe Room Dinner Package' may be only 2 (because the package price is only for 2 people).
Enter Max Adults, Min Adults and Max Children that the Product can accommodate.
Associate Rooms (or Combined Rooms) with the Product
If you have not yet Set Up Standard Rooms
and/or Set Up Combined Rooms, before
proceeding you must follow the relevant steps in the sections above.
To define which rooms can be sold as this Product, click on Add Rooms.
Click to Save changes.
Click Search and then tick the boxes adjacent to the Rooms that can be sold under this Product heading.
Click Save and you will be returned to the Product Configuration page.
Add Booking Extras
If you have previously defined Booking Extras, tick to select the ones that can be sold with this Product.
Add images of the Product
At least one image of the product should be displayed to the customer. Click on the "Browse" button beside Picture 1 or Picture 2 and select a jpeg file from your hard drive. Note that the images should be 200 x 133 pixels in size.
Click on the Save button.
To add more Products, start again from step 1. Your new Product cannot be booked until you have defined some prices.
To define prices for your Products, go to Daily Rate Manager and/or Special Offers.